It was a struggle I must say, but by the end I learnt quite a bit. It's going for a Disney-ish look and I know it could have been much better, I've seen Maya landscapes that are stunning. But this is as far as I could take it. So any comments welcome.

Either you have a classical art background or you are lying about this being your first project, it has good compostion, atmospheric dissipation( where it usually get's a blueish haze the farther you look from the camera-you picked green ) , soft shadows ( trees), variation in textures/color which gives it a more natural feel.

Either you have a classical art background or you are lying about this being your first project, it has good compostion, atmospheric dissipation( where it usually get's a blueish haze the farther you look from the camera-you picked green ) , soft shadows ( trees), variation in textures/color which gives it a more natural feel.

Looks great

not trying to be mean, but this sounds a little bit harsh. i agree with you it does have a nice feel to it. it very well could be his first maya project - but then he never said that it is the first project in ANY 3d program.

not trying to be mean, but this sounds a little bit harsh. i agree with you it does have a nice feel to it. it very well could be his first maya project - but then he never said that it is the first project in ANY 3d program.

Just to add to the above comment before this starts another flamewar .
If it is his/her very first project ever to have made in 3d then it looks surprisingly well and it is a compliment,if it isn't the first project they usually get upset and I get a lot of pissed of privatemessages saying my work sucks and incidentally throw some jargon at me which only a somewhat experienced 3d artist would know, all together a win-win situation hahaha .
But in all honesty don't read more in it than there is

Either you have a classical art background or you are lying about this being your first project, it has good compostion, atmospheric dissipation( where it usually get's a blueish haze the farther you look from the camera-you picked green ) , soft shadows ( trees), variation in textures/color which gives it a more natural feel.

Looks great

Thanks guys, Im glad you like it, I just thought it could be better but my Maya skills are very limited. No offence taken at all (I am a he), yes this is my first project in Maya, I was learning on the job and it took ages because I ran into problems and had no idea how to solve them. But yes I have been using 3D for a couple of years now, but Cheetah 3D looks like a box of crayons compared to Maya. And yes I am an artist and illustrator. The various greens in the background was taken from a Disney forest idea, clients request.

Now I'm back to tutorials and STILL trying to get a good gold material in Maya, I'm obviously doing something wrong, the freebies are not working. The good thing about Cheetah is gold is just a drag and drop, it comes with the program.

The look of a material greatly depends on lighting and rendersettings as well as the diverse settings of the material themselves, so even a downloaded shader doesn't necesarilly look good in your scene and I figured as much ( that you had some experience), but it doesn't matter, the endresult is the only thing that counts and it looks pretty good.
And there is always something that could be better or improved no matter at what level you are, just close this project off and go to the next one and look at it again in a year or two

The look of a material greatly depends on lighting and rendersettings as well as the diverse settings of the material themselves, so even a downloaded shader doesn't necesarilly look good in your scene and I figured as much ( that you had some experience), but it doesn't matter, the endresult is the only thing that counts and it looks pretty good.
And there is always something that could be better or improved no matter at what level you are, just close this project off and go to the next one and look at it again in a year or two

Yes for sure it could have looked a lot worse, it did at the start, and I thought, OMG what have I gotten myself in to? But it turned out pretty cool I think, well the client didn't throw it back at me.

Yes still have problems with some materials, but I did the first time I used 3D. the good thing about Maya is there are plenty on tutorials online, so each day I learn a little something new.

Looks really nice, I like the mood. Would be happy to move into the little cottage right now.

Have a look at this site if you're struggling with gold or materials in general, it explains it really well. Use a blinn or better a mia_material_x to create your metals in maya instead, then just adjust to color for the metal you want.

Looks really nice, I like the mood. Would be happy to move into the little cottage right now.

Have a look at this site if you're struggling with gold or materials in general, it explains it really well. Use a blinn or better a mia_material_x to create your metals in maya instead, then just adjust to color for the metal you want.

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